The Devil's Interval (13 page)

The PC outside was on his feet when Pepper came out.

‘Are you all right, sarge?’

‘Aye, fine. If they say he’s fit to make a statement let me know, would you, and I’ll send a couple of DCs down. Not that it matters much, either way. Either he’ll die here, on remand, or in prison. It won’t make much odds.’

‘He’s been asking for you, every time he’s come round, like. He kept saying something about his dad’s old shed. I couldn’t make it out, not clearly, like.’

‘His dad’s allotment shed, he must have meant. My old man was always too bloody lazy to cook a carrot, let alone grow one. I wonder why he was thinking about that?’

‘No idea. Did you go there as a kid, something like that?’

‘Aye, I must have. I do remember it vaguely, actually. It was dark and it smelt of mud, and my gran-dad’s roll ups, that’s all I remember. He was a fireman, you know, my dad’s dad. Bloody Trumpton, I ask you. Christ knows how my old man turned out the way he did, like. His old man was brave, and he was always grafting. Even at the bloody allotment, I expect.’

The PC shrugged. ‘It takes all sort, like.’

‘You should have been a philosopher, Derek, with a mind like that.’

The PC laughed, briefly, and Pepper Wilson walked away down the corridor. He watched her go, but she didn’t look back, even when the alarms started sounding from her father’s room. He shook his head, and held the door open for the two doctors who rushed past him. ‘Like I said, it takes all sorts.’

Pepper didn’t often think about how she was feeling, let alone why, but as she drove back to work she thought about both. She felt fine, and she knew why. In fact, if anything, she had to suppress a smile. And it was Ben she was thinking about. Because now, as he grew up to be a man, she wouldn’t have to worry about her dad talking cobblers to the boy after school, or when Ben was out with his mates. The old bastard had tried that once already, only weeks before, claiming that he wanted to give the lad a few quid, because he’d been earning.

‘Earning?’ she’d said to him, when she’d found out and gone round to his freezing flat. ‘That’s what proper grown-up people do, dad. What you do is take, that’s all. You’ve never done a hand’s turn in your whole bloody life.’

‘I always tried, Pepper, but there’s been nothing about. And I’m over sixty now…’

‘Bollocks, dad. When I was at primary school every single kid in my class had a working dad. At the tyre factory, the brewery, or on the biscuit job, or even as a bloody traffic warden. Something, anything. Every single one, except you. You’ve lived your pathetic life the way you chose. You’ve achieved nowt, and you add up to nowt. I don’t want Ben to know you, and I don’t want him to see you without me. Not ever. You hear me?’

She ran the conversation back in her head, and wondered if she’d change any of it now. It was all true, so no, she decided, she wouldn’t. As she crawled through the traffic the sun came out, and for a moment the far side of the street was drenched in gold. She was looking forward to getting back to the office, and to making another statement in support of Abla Khan. There was no way that the lass could possibly have known that her old man couldn’t drive properly, and he would have probably crashed of his own accord, even if Abla hadn’t even touched him.

As she walked through the station’s foyer, past the rest room and up the stairs to the CID suite, Pepper made a point of exchanging a few words with all of the coppers she met. A couple asked about her dad, and she told them all the same thing: that she was much more worried about Abla. It was the truth, and the cops who’d known her dad - which was all of the older ones - didn’t look remotely surprised. One shitbag was much like another, and the cops never really thought about them having children. Not ones that you’d actually know, anyway.

She called her two DCs into her office, and Henry looked as if he had a valedictory speech prepared. She wasn’t surprised. He’d always seemed like the type. So she held up her hand to stop him.

‘Look, lads,’ she said, ‘my old fella won’t make it, and, if I’m honest, that’s the best outcome from where we’re at, like. If he lives he’s going to be severely disabled, and he’ll cost the taxpayer a bloody fortune to keep in prison. And he certainly won’t live long enough to see the outside again, either way. So he might as well die now, as later.’

‘I’m sorry, Pepper,’ interrupted Henry, ‘but your dad has died. That’s what I was trying to tell you. They’ve been trying to reach you.’

‘Shit, I forgot to turn my phone back on. Bollocks. Well, there you are, then. Nothing we can do except try to nick everyone else involved in last night’s bloody shambles. So let’s make a start with Alan Farmer, shall we? Where is that two-faced bastard?’

‘We’re on it already’ said Copeland. ‘I’ve already been to his house, the wife hasn’t seen him in days, and his mobile phone’s inactive. No email activity since yesterday. Car hasn’t popped up on ANPR either.’

‘Bank cards?’

‘Just getting that set up now. And me and Henry are off on the rounds of his KAs.’

‘Right, give me five minutes, and I’ll be with you. Rex, you spilt them up between us, but I’ll take John Porter. I really want to hear what he has to say. Tell you what; Henry, you come with me on that one.’

He nodded, and looked pleased to be asked.

‘All right, let’s get on with it. I’ll be five minutes, tops, so Henry, you find out if Porter is at home for us, OK?’

Pepper turned on her mobile, and listened to the message from the hospital. Judging from the message’s time her dad must have been dead before she’d even reached her car. She sat quietly for a moment, while her computer booted up, and then glanced through her emails. She only replied to one, telling the traffic superintendent handling Abla Khan’s disciplinary that she wanted to attend in person, as she had additional comments to make. Then she phoned Henderson, and told him that she was intending to turn up at the hearing.

‘Me too’, he said. ‘It’s an absolute nonsense, Pepper, and I’ll bloody tell them so. Maxwell isn’t some tearaway who just nicked a car, he’s a vicious nutter who had to be caught at any price. They need to understand that. But listen, how’s your dad?’

‘Dead.’

‘Shit, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘Well, I am. I lost my dad last year, and it still hurts like hell. But let me ask you one thing. What was your old man doing driving that thing? I expected some sort of latter-day Jackie Stewart, not someone who’s about the same age as the real thing.’

Pepper laughed. ‘I spoke to him, just before he died, and he told me that Dai recruited him specially.’

‘Why?’

‘To get at me, to send a message, something like that. I don’t know. Maybe he knew that this would happen all along. Maybe he ratted out his own operation. Fuck knows.’

‘Aye, perhaps he just wanted a bad driver because he wanted to make sure that Maxwell got nicked. The thought had crossed my mind.’

‘Makes sense, I suppose, but why would he do that? Screw up his own operation, I mean. The only good thing to come out of this whole bloody mess is that Dai Young is bound to have incurred the displeasure of the sort of people you really don’t want to piss off.’

When she’d rung off Pepper got up, opened her office door, and told Armstrong that she’d be another two minutes, tops. Then she dialled Dr. Collier’s number, and was surprised to get straight through to him.

‘I’m not due to be seeing you today, am I, Pepper?’

‘No, doc, you’re not. And I just wanted to let you know that I won’t be coming back.’

‘I see. Well, thanks for letting me know.’

‘Don’t you want to know why?’

‘Of course, if you’d like to tell me.’

‘I know what I need to change, doc. About myself, about work, everything. I always did. I’m bruised, but I’m not broken, and there’s a big difference. I’m going to think less about myself, and more about the people that matter to me. Maybe find some new people to matter to me, if I can. And I’m going to talk less, and do more. No offence, doc, but talking’s what I do when I should be listening.’

‘None taken. As I explained, your continued attendance was purely voluntary, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘I know, and thanks. It was interesting.’

‘Interesting?’

Pepper laughed. ‘Sorry, I mean helpful. Of course you’ve been helpful. I guess I’m not really the talking kind, that’s all.’

There was a silence at the other end of the line. ‘You know, don’t you?’ said Pepper, eventually.

‘About your father? Yes, Mary Clark called me a while ago to let me know. She thought that you might need help. He’s badly injured, I understand.’

‘He’d dead. But don’t worry, I’m fine. It was for the best, for everyone, like.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Well, you know where I am, if you need me.’

‘I do.’

‘And you’re at work now, are you?’

‘Aye. Where else would I be?’

Henry Armstrong didn’t say much as he drove to John Porter’s house, and Pepper was grateful. There’d been no reply from either his house or his office phone.

‘So what does it mean, Pepper?’ asked Armstrong, finally. ‘Was it Porter who was moving Maxwell, do you reckon? Maybe he’s gone to ground because of it.’

‘Has to be a possibility, I suppose. But before my old man died he told me it was Young who’d hired him, not Porter.’

‘Well then’, said Armstrong quickly, ‘that must be what happened, mustn’t it? Sorry, Pepper, I didn’t know.’

Pepper laughed. It was a natural, happy laugh, and Armstrong glanced round at her in surprise.

‘Take no notice of me, Henry, but my dad wasn’t like yours. You see, what honest folk don’t realise is that people like my old man don’t just lie to the cops, they lie to everyone, all the time. As a matter of principle, like. And that includes their families. We were my dad’s main victims when I was growing up, and that’s a fact. His whole shitty life, no matter who he stole from or conned, it was us he came back to. And then he did all the same shit to us. He lied, he stole, he conned us, right up to the end. So, to tell you the truth, the only thing that makes me doubt that Dai Young was actually involved in all this is the fact that my dad said that he was. Does that make sense?’

Armstrong thought about it for a moment. ‘Got you. So maybe it was Porter, after all. But we’ll be there in a bit, and you can ask him yourself.’

But the house was deserted, and after she’d walked round the whole place Pepper stood in front of the door and waved up at the CCTV camera. Then she took a pad from her bag, wrote her mobile number on it, and held it up to the camera. She waited for a minute or so, then walked back to the car.

‘Look on the bright side’ Armstrong said, as he was driving back to Carlisle. ‘If Porter and his people have made a run for it then at least that’s few less villains for us to deal with.’

‘Hardly, Henry. Because it’s the lads that they’ve run away from that we should really be worrying about.’ Pepper was going to go on, and instruct Henry on the life-cycle of the criminal mayfly, and how his moment in the sun was invariably terminated by the last swallow of summer. But her phone rang, and she answered it immediately.

‘Mr. Porter. Thanks for calling back so quickly. Keeping an eye on the old place, then?’

‘Aye, though I don’t know why I bother. I’ll not be going back.’

‘Was it something we said?’

‘You know why. Certain people are convinced that I gave up Maxwell to you lot, and I didn’t. Never even knew about it, until I got a call from a friend, like.’

‘Then tell Maxwell’s mates that. Running won’t do you any good.’

‘You must be bloody joking, love. Because we all know who tipped you lot off, don’t we?’

‘Do we?’

‘Aye. It was Farmer. And everyone and their mum knows that he was one of mine.’

‘But it makes no sense, you giving up Maxwell, just to get at Dai Young. It’s bloody obvious, is that.’

‘Aye, but can you prove it? Is there any chance that you lot will be able to nick anyone for this? Prove it wasn’t me, like.’

‘I tell you what. You drop in to the nick, and we’ll do a proper interview. Get the job done right, like. And when you’re eliminated, from our enquiry I mean, then we can talk about all that. I’ll bring you right up to speed.’

‘Piss off. I’m not coming in to the station.’

‘Can you assist with our enquiry in any other way, then? That might help you, longer term, you know. Information about where Maxwell was held, who else was involved, anything like that?’

‘I told you. I knew nowt about it, not a bloody thing.’

‘All right, so how about Farmer, then? Point me in his direction and then we’d be making progress, wouldn’t we?’

‘Farmer? You’ll never find him, and if you do he’ll not be talking.’

‘I hope that’s not the case, for your sake. And you do know the driver was my dad? He died an hour or so back.’

‘Your old man? Sorry, I didn’t know. But why him? No offence, love, but I wouldn’t trust your dad to drive a milk float.’

‘You sound pretty relaxed, considering the mess you’re in’, said Pepper. ‘So am I safe in assuming that you weren’t looking out of an upstairs window when I was at your house?’

‘I’ve got a very different view, let’s just say that.’

‘And have you got your kids away too? I was going to have them looked in on.’

‘Aye, they’re safely away from Cumbria. But none of them are anything to do with my business, Pepper. Dai Young knows that.’

‘I’m sure he does, but it won’t be Young who comes after you and yours now, will it? That was clever, I’ll give him that. But you know how this works, John, because you’ve been nicked often enough.Young’s brief will bloody laugh at us when we bring the bastard in to talk about this whole bloody mess. All we’ve got linking him to any of it is the word of an informant who is known to be involved in organised crime, and who is now also missing, presumed deceased. So to answer your original question, no, we won’t nick anyone for this. Not a bloody chance. So I wish you a long holiday, and good luck with all the plastic surgery.’